Environment Department Papers

52 items available

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/10986/18025

These discussion papers are produced primarily by the Environment Department, on occasion jointly with other departments. Papers in this series are not formal publications of the World Bank. They are circulated to encourage thought and discussion. The use and citation of this paper should take this into account. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the World Bank.

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Improving Environmental Sustainability in Road Projects

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-02) Montgomery, Robert ; Schirmer, Howard Jr. ; Hirsch, Art

The focus of this document is to provide a wide range of ideas and options to improve the inclusion of environmental sustainability throughout the road transportation project cycle (system planning, project planning and design, construction, and operation and maintenance) based on environmental sustainability indicators and highlighting environmentally sustainable products and materials for road construction. Sustainable economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is a key to poverty reduction and shared prosperity, which in part is dependent on reliable and safe transportation systems. Road and highway systems provide a critical function in creating and maintaining a desirable quality of life.
Strengthening Policy Dialogue on Environment : Learning from Five Years of Country Environmental Analysis

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02) Pillai, Poonam

The objective of this paper is to review experience with completed country environmental analysis (CEAs) to improve the effectiveness of CEAs as a strategic analytical tool. Through in-depth analysis of the process, methodologies, costs, and results of completed CEA pilots, the paper assesses how effective CEAs have been in informing and providing strategic guidance to the Bank and client countries on environment-development issues and the extent to which they have facilitated donor coordination. The analysis carried out in this paper also provides feedback on when to prepare a CEA, how to prepare and structure CEAs, and how to use specific methodologies and processes in influencing policy dialogue with partner countries. The findings are of potential interest to World Bank sector managers, country directors, CEA task teams, and environmental staff, but also to development partners who carry out work similar to CEAs. The paper is based on a desk review of completed CEAs and on interviews with task managers and members of CEA teams. Several reports, including a fieldwork-based assessment of the Ghana, India, and Guatemala CEAs commissioned by the Environment Department; a review on Tunisia by the Quality Assurance Group (QAG); and a report commissioned by the Latin America and Caribbean Region, based on in-country assessments of completed CEAs, have also informed this study. A detailed case study analysis of each completed CEA was prepared for this exercise; it substantively informed the review and is available as a background paper. The original CEA concept note proposed that CEAs have three main building blocks: (a) establishment of environment-development priorities linked with growth and poverty reduction, (b) assessment of the environmental implications of sector policies, and (c) institutional analysis. Assessing CEAs against this building block structure, the review highlights several findings.
Environment in 2005 Country Assistance Strategies

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-11) Kishore, Sunanda

Country Assistance Strategies (CASs) have been periodically reviewed from a variety of different perspectives. This review assesses how environment is integrated in CASs for 2005 and also compares the progress made by 37 countries over the period of 1999-2005. Five themes are used to assess the 23 CASs across an established methodology also used in previous reviews. The five themes are: issues identification, treatment, mainstreaming, environmental policy and poverty- environment linkages. The review finds that the treatment of environment in CASs has only marginally improved. However, the positive aspect is the increase in the number of good practice cases as illustrated by high scores of individual countries under the five different themes. These good practice cases provide lessons and serve as tools for strengthening future CASs. Poverty environment linkages continue to remain the weakest aspect of CASs.
Models for Recognizing Indigenous Land Rights in Latin America

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2004-10) Roldán Ortega, Roque

This paper represents an important dimension in filling Latin America history's gaps through the lens of land rights. The continent was populated by many nations, functioned in harmony with nature, had a variety of cultures and languages, and, developed many different socio-economic systems (nationally and locally). These nations were sovereign and recognized from Alaska to Patagonia. Indeed, among all of them, we know they had very advanced, and well established institutional arrangements and organizations (formal and informal), created and nurtured with the view to respond to the needs, and challenges of the time. With a variety of forms of governance, these societies did assign rights, and responsibilities to the different actors, and groups in order to maintain an acceptable level of social cohesion, to establish important political consensus. As the political systems of some countries are now becoming more democratic to listening, and embracing the views of minorities, issues of land rights have clearly surfaced. Issues of sovereignty, customary law and, simply, of traditional norms-from the national to the household levels-are being put on the table of what is clearly a complex social dialogue. The paper is an excellent source of basic information, sharing an easy and practical understanding about land tenure/titling, as discussed above. In addition, the paper represents a genuine attempt to: a) recognize the existence of these complex land rights and land titling systems across Latin America; b) study the content at the country level, so that international experiences/comparisons may spark a move towards policy coherence and legislation; and, c) demonstrate that land is not only a physical asset with some economic and financial value, but an intrinsic dimension, and part of peoples lives and belief systems. There is also a human rights dimension to all of the above. And it is essential to understand this human rights dimension of land rights, not just as a legal obligation, but as a key element of economic and social development.
A Review of the Valuation of Environmental Costs and Benefits in World Bank Projects

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-12) Silva, Patricia ; Pagiola, Stefano

The review examines the use of environmental valuation in 101 projects in the World Bank's environmental portfolio approved in fiscal years 2000, 2001, and 2002. It has three broad objectives. First, it examines the extent to which environmental costs and benefits have been incorporated in the economic analysis of projects. Second, it examines how well valuation was used. Third, it seeks to identify areas of weakness so as to feed into plans for capacity building. The results show that the use of environmental valuation has increased substantially in the last decade. Ten years ago, one project in 162 used environmental valuation. In recent years, as many as one third of the projects in the environmental portfolio did so. While this represents a substantial improvement, there remains considerable scope for growth.
A Critical Review of the Literature on Structural Adjustment and the Environment

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-04) Gueorguieva, Anna ; Bolt, Katherine

This paper analyzes the available literature about the effects of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on the environment and the convincing evidence for their success or failure. The studies covered refer to the SAPs by the World Bank as well as to general government programs that have similar policy implications. SAPs are designed to reform economies to become more liberalized and export-oriented while reducing the role of governments that have become inefficient bureaucracies. Because of the implications of policies such as debt accumulation and trade, a concise literature review on debt and trade liberalization is also included. Despite the controversy surrounding structural adjustment and the environment, the debate has been largely based on anecdotal evidence and country case studies. Most of the studies reviewed are not quantitative and have not applied rigorous statistical methods. The conclusions of studies on the effects of structural adjustment (SA) on the environment are strongly influenced by what is examined, the sectoral level, and the stage of the SA process. The infrequency of high-caliber studies is due to data scarcity and statistical limitations. There is little reason to doubt, however, that over the longer term, the sorts of changes in incentive structures and relative price changes brought about by SA lending will have an impact on the environment. Economies undergoing SA will experience both growth (assuming the success of SAPs) and structural shifts, which will affect the extraction of natural resources and the level of pollution emissions.
Beating the Resource Curse : The Case of Botswana

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-10) Sarraf, Maria ; Jiwanji, Moortaza

The endowment of natural resources has often been associated with disappointing economic development. This phenomenon is referred to in the literature as the "resource curse," which hypothesizes that economies experiencing resource booms, either through price increases or new discoveries, will experience unsustainable growth rates. There are various mechanisms through which a resource-boom can negatively impact on an economy. For instance, it can lead to excessive government expenditure during the boom period and drastic cuts when the boom ends; detrimental impacts on non-boom tradable sectors; inefficient investment beyond the absorptive capacity of the country; and rent seeking behavior. By exploring the case of the mineral boom in Botswana, this paper will demonstrate that the resource curse is not necessarily the fate of resource abundant countries. The adoption of sound economic policies and the good management of windfall gains have allowed Botswana to continuously manage growth and to become one of the great success stories of developing countries.
Genuine Saving as a Sustainability Indicator

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2000-10) Hamilton, Kirk

Growth theory provides the intellectual underpinning for expanded national accounting and, through the measure of genuine saving, an indicator of when economies are on an unsustainable development path. This theory points in useful directions for countries concerned with sustainable development. The genuine savings analysis raises an important set of policy questions that goes beyond the traditional concern with the macroeconomic and microeconomic determinants of savings efforts. The questions of rent capture, public investments of resource revenues, resource tenure policies, and the social costs of pollution emissions are equally germane in determining the overall level of saving, although it is clear that monetary and fiscal policy remain the big levers. This analysis also provides a practical way for natural resource and environmental issues to be discussed in the language that ministries of Finance understand. This may prove to be an important advantage as many resource-dependent economies struggle to achieve their development goals.